This Side of the Grave

Normal vampires had plenty of options when it came to feeding. The power in their gaze meant they could snack off humans without their donors remembering it had happened, or vampires exchanged room and board with specially selected humans in return for blood.

I didn’t have those conveniences. Mind control didn’t work on other vampires, and no undead households I knew of had a stable of vampires available to feed from. Plus, we were still trying to keep my strange diet – and its side effects – from becoming common knowledge. So I couldn’t just ask the next vampire I saw if I could take a bite out of him or her.

Scratch passed the blood-smeared knife back to Bones once he was finished swearing his fealty. I resisted a sudden urge to lick the blade and concentrated on the road, making a mental rundown of ways I could get blood. Juan, a member of my old team, was undead just a year, so he was a possibility. Maybe I could get him to ship some of his blood to me, though Juan would wonder why I wanted it. None of them knew about my odd diet yet.

Bones’s best friend, Spade, knew what I fed off of and I’d had his blood before, but I didn’t want to make it a habit. Spade was a Master vampire, so that meant he was too strong.

Most of Bones’s friends were too strong, in fact.

Dammit. Not drinking from Bones without starving would be more difficult than I’d imagined.

"For now, don’t tell anyone of our association," Bones said to Ed and Scratch, centering my attention back on the present situation. "Go about your business as if we’d never met. Here’s a number where you can reach me. At the first sight of those ghouls, you ring me straightaway, but do not confront them. Understood?"

"Got it" and "Sure" were the responses. I wondered if they did understand. I did, and wasn’t thrilled.

I dropped the vampires off close to the Easton fountain where we’d met them, waiting until I’d driven a couple miles away before I slanted a glance at Bones.

"You’re using them as bait."

Bones met my gaze, his dark brown stare concealing nothing. "Yes."

"God," I muttered. "You’re not letting them tell anyone that they’ve just been upgraded from being Masterless to belonging to a powerful vampire so those ghouls will still consider them easy meat. That’s deliberately putting them in danger."

"No more than they were before, as they said themselves. But now if they’re harmed, I’ll have rights under our laws to investigate," he replied with annoying logic. "Believe me, pet, I’m hoping nothing happens to them and their usefulness comes from pointing me in those ghouls’

direction. But if Apollyon is behind these attacks, we need a way to get to him without looking like we’re being mindlessly antagonistic. Otherwise . . ." Bones didn’t have to finish the sentence. Otherwise, Apollyon will have more fuel for the rumors that I’m seeking to be some sort of vampiric Stalin, I mentally finished. Right, because that’s what I put on my To Do list every morning. Brush teeth. Wash hair. Rule undead world with an iron fist.

"I don’t know why ghouls would listen to Apollyon about me being a threat anyway," I muttered. "I might have a wacky diet as a vampire, but Apollyon can’t tell people that I’ll combine ghoul and vampire powers anymore. Changing over took care of that paranoid rant from him."

Bones’s stare was sympathetic, but unyielding. "Kitten, you’ve been a vampire for less than a year. During that time, you’ve blown the head off a Master vampire through pyrokinesis and frozen dozens of vampires into a stupor through telekinesis. Your abilities, plus your occasional heartbeat, are bound to frighten some people."

"But they’re not my abilities!" I burst. "Okay, the intermittent heartbeat is mine, but all the rest were borrowed powers. I don’t even have them anymore, and if I hadn’t drunk from Vlad and Mencheres, I never would have gotten them in the first place."

"No one knows how you got them, or that you lose them after a while," Bones noted.

"Maybe we should tell them." But even as I said it, I knew better.

He let out what might have been a sigh. "If Apollyon knew the source of your abilities, he could argue that you could manifest any power you wanted merely by drinking from a vampire who had it. Better he just thinks you’re extraordinarily gifted based on your own merits."

In other words, no matter how we tried to dress it up, I still came across as a dangerous freak. I took in a deep breath in the hopes that the familiar gesture would calm me. It didn’t. All it did was bring the scent of blood into my lungs, clenching my stomach in an almost painful way.

"Too bad your co-ruler’s visions still aren’t back to full strength. That would take the guesswork out of whether or not this is Apollyon’s doing." Bones gave a shrug in concurrence. "Mencheres has had a few more glimpses into the future, but nothing relating to this, and he still can’t command his visions at will yet. With luck, his full powers will return soon."

But until then, we were on our own. "So we stick to not telling anyone how I absorb power from blood, and to using Ed and Scratch to lead us to these ghouls to see if Apollyon is behind them."

"That’s right, luv."

I closed my eyes. I might not like the plan, but at the moment, it was our best option.

"That just leaves one more thing," I said, opening my eyes to give Bones a wan smile.

"Finding someone other than you for me to feed from."

Chapter Four

I didn’t recognize the guards who ranonto the helicopter pad to escort me and Bones into the compound run by my former boss and uncle, Don Williams. Then again, I hadn’t been back here since last year. Maybe I should’ve called first. Announcing myself to the control tower once I was inside their air space wasn’t really giving notice, but Don needed to know about the trouble brewing. That sort of information merited a face-to-face update, in my opinion. Plus Juan was here, and I hoped he was open to the idea of letting me take some of his blood.

Of course, if I were being entirely truthful, I’d admit the impromptu helicopter trip to eastern Tennessee was about more than information or even eating. Business had made Don cancel our last few attempts at getting together, so it had been months since I’d seen my uncle.

We might have had a rocky start to our relationship, but I’d missed him. This trip was a chance to kill three birds with one stone, which Don should appreciate. He was all about multitasking.

We had reached the double doors of the roof when Bones stopped walking so abruptly, one of the guards collided into him.

"Bloody hell," Bones muttered.

My head whipped around, but nothing unusual was going on except the guard looking embarrassed about plowing into Bones’s back. Then pity and resolve skittered across my subconscious. I tensed. Those weren’t my emotions.